From left: Jyron Lee, Nadia Lee (Houston Police Department) and Nancy Reed (McCoy and Harrison Funeral Home).
A Texas man will spend decades in prison for murdering his 2-year-old daughter and dumping her body in a bayou before then killing his girlfriend.
Jyron Lee, aged 29, received a 56-year prison sentence on Monday for the 2022 murders of his girlfriend, Nancy Reed, and their 2-year-old daughter, Nadia Lee. He admitted to committing the murders as part of a plea deal that led to the dismissal of a capital murder charge, which could have resulted in a life sentence without parole.
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The investigation by Houston police began on October 18, 2022, when Reed’s body was found at an extended-stay hotel. She had died from strangulation. At that point, detectives discovered that Nadia was unaccounted for, and further evidence suggested she had also been killed.
In the course of examining Lee’s residence, authorities found bloodied clothing, sheets, and towels, alongside a Minnie Mouse bed marked by blood with an “indentation” and human hair nearby, according to an affidavit for Lee’s arrest. During questioning, Lee told detectives he had left Nadia in his unlocked residence while he took out the trash. Upon his return, he claimed she was missing and assumed that Reed had come to retrieve her.
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Cops learned Lee, in an earlier interview, said Nadia was with Reed’s relatives. But the relatives said they last saw Nadia some four days prior to Reed’s murder when she left her grandmother’s house with Lee. He had picked her up that day from her foster parents’ home, where she had stayed since July 2021.
A search of Lee’s phone found more sinister actions. After he picked Nadia up from the foster care home, he texted Reed, “My family will be completed when you come back f—k whoever you with right now give me my family.” Surveillance video from Lee’s apartment showed Nadia was last seen alive with him on Oct. 16, 2022. Cops believe she was killed on this day.
Cops also found concerning Google searches on his phone including “is whooping your child a sin?” is whooping kids a sin?” and “in the Bible, is it a sin not to spank a misbehaving child?” He also looked up “how long it takes for a dead body to smell?”
While investigators had enough evidence to charge Lee with Nadia’s murder in December 2022, it wasn’t until March 2023 that authorities found Nadia’s body in a bayou not far from his apartment. Cops never publicly divulged Nadia’s cause of death.
